December; The Most Crazy Time of the Year

As we make our way into December, I am realizing how quickly this year is going by. 
We are starting a unit on Animals this week, and I have to admit that I am finding it hard to narrow the focus.  I find all of it interesting and feel badly cutting it down to one area, for example habitats.  I also want to incorporate Big Buddies into the process, using their knowledge of research and computers skills to help with the study.  I am right now leaning towards having a joint project of research with buddies, and have some activities tied into Literacy Centres.  We may even end up making habitats, as growing things right now is a little difficult in the frozen North.  The ideas are still percolating, but I'd take any suggestions right now too!
This December, I have decided on a few little big projects that we will do as a class.  We are going to do a food drive, document our days for December and also take part in a community challenge!  This will be in addition to all the crafty projects and practicing for Christmas concert that we also have planned!  Hmmm.  After seeing all that in print, my heart started to race a little.  We'll see....

A Catchup Post

I can not believe it's been a month since I last posted here!  Things have been busy for sure. 
I have been busy trying to clean out cupboards and reorganize math centres.  Of course I ended up sick for about 5 weeks as well, so it was a struggle just to get through the day.  This blog has definitely been neglected.  I am currently watching for the plastic shoeboxes to go on sale, as I have figured out that I can stack two high in the Math area.  I just need more containers to get everything into.
To keep some of my more messy kids organized, I have adopted a Desk Fairy this year.  I found the printable on TPT and then bought some reward cards and printed those out too.  The kids love it!  They look every morning to see if the Desk Fairy visited the night before.  She doesn't always come, but when she does, she leaves her card.  The rewards vary from free time, to using a clip board, trading desks with a friend, etc.  I try not to give candy ( I have some kids that don't react well to sugar), and my kids got a little too expectant with the prize jar.  Every time they did something, they expected a prize for it.  I'm trying these non-physical things to see how they work out.  So far, so good.

I have been really happy with the products that I've been getting from TPT .  I have bought a few centres packs and some other items and love it.  Now I don't have to buy an expensive book for one or two things that I like, but I can download and print particular things instead.  Love, love, love.

Still organizing...

In a classroom there is always something to do, to clean or to organize, especially with younger kids.  In our classrooms we have old computers that work most of the time.  I have to say when I read other teacher blogs, I am amazed at the amount of ipads, laptops and other devices that are available to them.  I wonder how they get it all.  Anyway, that's not what this post is about.  I am slowly moving around the room and deciding what kind of organization is needed.  Last week, I finally got the problem of earphones figured out.  I got the idea off of Pinterest originally, but made it work with my limited resources.  I went to dollar store and bought everyone in the class a set of ear buds and a little container to keep them in.  I used my handy Dymo to label each one, and voila!  Tidy and stackable inside a bin.  It stays under the computer table and the kids can get them out by themselves.  Next up I think will be the Math manipulatives area. 

Class jobs

After reading this post, from Sunny Days in Second Grade, I started thinking about my own system in my class.  

I created this system when I returned to the classroom after being a Learning Assistance teacher for a few years.  I wanted the least amount of children moving around the classroom at a time in the shortest amount of time possible.  So I created Group Leaders.  My kids sit in a formation of 4 or 5, and their desk position and day of the week determines who is group leader.  Let me explain.  Mondays is always the person closest to the door, Tuesday is the person across from them, Wednesday is next to Tuesday and Thursday is across from Wednesday.  If there is only four in the group, then Monday gets 2 turns.  This doesn't seem to be a problem as my kids get moved around in groups and class fairly regularly.  Group leaders collect supplies, pass out papers and generally make my life easier. 
I also have person of the week.  The person is chosen on Friday for Monday, and is the line leader, takes the attendance to the office (when my online attendance is not working), and does other little jobs and errands for me.  
My job chart is sparse.  I don't have plants to water, a class pet to feed or anything like that.  I have 2 library people who need to take our books down in a big bin on library days, and straighten out the class library.  I have 2 people to take care of the recycling bins and make sure they are separated out properly.  I have 1 person to make sure the centers are put back properly and that there is enough materials in each bin on Fridays.  Everyone is responsible for their own chairs, floors and coat hooks.  Last year I had lots of very helpful kids and had to make up jobs for some of them as they were so desperate.  I am not good at changing the people at the main jobs and usually a change happens when someone reminds me that we haven't changed in a while!  This year I am going to try to be better about this, and have put it on my calendar to help remind me.

Classroom Tour

I thought I'd share what my room looks like.  My centres are not full of open, coloured baskets, but I don't like open storage, as it's very dusty where I live. There are some things in open totes because I haven't found what I'm looking for to hold the bigger things.  My goal this year is to get all the ugly totes out of my room, and replace them with new, white ones.

Lit Centres

Math Centres

                                                                               I keep my groups in fours, when possible, so it's easy to move around the room and everyone has a bit of space.  Behind the book shelf is my desk and messy corner.  It's great to have that little divider when I have things that I don't want the kids to see right away (like treats) and I have a place that's out of the way.  It's a great place to observe from.  The kids almost forget that I'm there.  I spend most of my time at the rainbow table after instruction, calling small groups.  The shelves on the back wall hold math centers in clear shoe boxes on one half, and on the other, math supplies. My Literacy centers are also in clear shoe boxes as well as some open baskets as the materials are a little larger.  I label everything and go through taking supplies out and putting away properly.  It takes so much time at the beginning of the year, but sooo worth it.  The blue pocket chart on the back wall will show centre groups and their daily centres, once we've learned them all.  My student cupboard holds all of their supplies (we share in my class) and the shelves are labeled there too for easy organization. 

Student Supply Cupboard

So far my little ones are doing really well at getting things out and putting them away.  I'm lucky as the teacher next door has similar routines in his class, so half my class came in with some idea of how things work.  It helps the guy next door is my husband!

And here we go...

I am really excited to be teaching a straight grade 2 class again this year.  I have to admit, I was really preparing myself for a 1/2 this year.  I have been very lucky to have a straight grade for 3 years now, and I know that there is more than one staff member who is a little jealous. The downside, is that I have 24 little people this year.  That's 4 extra bodies and I don't think they are going to make the room any bigger.  I met them today during the last 20 minutes of our day, and whew!  They are soooo little!  I always forget how little they are and how much work I have to do to get the room going.  Well tomorrow it starts and we shall see!

Why I'm not that excited

I have been slowly looking into things for the new year.  Looking at teacher's blogs, pinning like crazy on Pinterest and doing some reading, but I'm just not that excited.  I thought about it for awhile and at first I thought it had to do with the fact that I'm not a new teacher anymore.  This is not the reason.  I realized that it's because I really don't know what I'm teaching this year.  I read other blogs and they talked about how many kids they have in their rooms, how they have all their name tags and furniture ready and how excited they from meeting their parents and students already.  I won't find out my assignment until the end of the first week and while I will be interacting with children they won't be mine for the year.  The district line is that having whole grade groups for the first few days and not putting them into classes is better for the students.  There are studies ( I haven't been able to find any, but I'm still looking) that say moving children around after placing them is bad.  We have to wait until we see the "whites of their eyes" to know class size and what our teaching assignments are.  With that being the case, I can't get too specific in planning or organization, so I have some ideas that I might like to try, maybe.

I am going to use some of this limbo time to get my class blog ready for the new year.  I thing a change in theme is in order as well as a few other additions.  I want to start the blogging instruction in September this year, and with my Smartboard that will make little lessons way easier.  At least the in the beginning.  I hope our computer lab is working a little better....  

Getting to it

While my husband was at an in service today, I spent the day roaming around the web, tidying things up in my digital life and making some decisions.

I found many interesting blogs with some great ideas not only for my own class blog, but also some tips and ideas for my classroom.  I managed to bookmarks some items to go back to, one of them called Storybird.  It might be an interesting tool for writing.  We'll see. 
I also read some of the things I had put into Pocket (formerly Read It Later).  It seems that I have been a bit of a pack rat with articles and such.  I didn't get through all of them, but made a good start.
The decisions came as I was ingesting all of this wonderful stuff all over the web.  I need to decide what I want to work on, and not get all tied up in knots about what is out there.  I think what I will do is separate things into topics and set a goal for each one.  When I feel the goal is met, move onto another goal.  I think this will keep me organized and focused on what I want to accomplish this year.  I start out, as many do, full of vim and vigor, but somewhere, I fizzle and start to lose track of all the great things I want to do.  The topics and goals I have chosen for now are as follows:

Tech: class blog, make it more appealing and add some more info onto it for visitors

Writing: start The Trait Crate ASAP

Math: look more into Jump Math and see how it is going to fit into my classroom

Organization: take a good look in my cupboards and decide what really needs to stay.

I am also going to build my PLN.  This will be an ongoing project for the year.

We'll see how all this goes....

A new year, a new blog

This school year, I thought I'd try something a little different and start a blog devoted to just what is going on in my classroom.  I have been inspired by recent lurking I have done on the web and thought it would be a great way to separate my teaching "stuff" from my personal "stuff".  We'll see how it goes.